HERO... or just doing the right thing?

So the other night @MississaugaKids called me a hero because I was put in a situation and without even thinking I acted on it. I personally don't think I did anything special.










You see we went out for a nice early family dinner at this great restaurant at 5pm on a Sunday and just after we left I was driving along and this van came inches from side swipping me.  I passed him and made a right turn heading towards home.  This guy turned too, he was weaving all over the road, went into the on coming lane a few times missing cars by seconds.  I told my husband who was in the passenger seat because he enjoyed a few beers with dinner, to call 911.  I knew that it wasn't a situation of this guy playing with his stereo which we thought when we were almost hit by him.

They wanted us to follow him and get his license plate number, which we did, he went everywhere and we followed.  At one point he drove off a country road into a deep ditch and we thought for sure he was going to hit a tree, but he kept on going.  So we kept on following him, we wanted to make sure that he didn't get away before the police got there.

The 911 operator said they had his address and figured he was heading for home and they were sending an officer there and when he got there we could leave.

Well he kept on driving and headed towards a parking lot (ironically the parking lot to the York Regional Police Clubhouse!!) where we followed him.  I went in another entrance and parked back far from him.  I told hubby to call 911 again and tell them where we were so they were not waiting at his house.  We stayed in case he decide to leave again.  We waited for an hour for the police to arrive, where they took him to the police station, towed his van and took hubby's statement.

They stated that he could barely speak but he didn't smell of alcohol. That he was most likely an alcoholic and could hide it well.

We drove for 20minutes with this man as we watched him almost kill many people.  I could not imagine just leaving and going home, at one point in our drive around town with this guy we were 1 minute from home.  It was a Sunday evening, the kids needed a bath and I had laundry to finish, but that didn't matter.

I have a friend who 18 years ago was hit by a drunk drive early on a Sunday morning, he was in the hospital for a long long time and almost didn't survive, thankfully he did, but he has never been the same since.

I have a friend @SharonDV who was one of these unlucky drivers who was on the road, driving along, minding her own business.  Family in tow heading out for a Mothers Day celebration and was hit head on by a drunk driver.  You can read more of her story here. I read it a few years ago and it has stuck with me.  She is one of the first people I thought of when I saw this guy drive across the center line.

I did what I think anyone should.  I didn't think about what I still had to do that night, I just thought about the people like Sharon (or my friend from high school) and how I could not do anything.  Very similar to the situation with my son, I could not sit back and not think about how we were lucky, but what if someone else gets hurt.

The downside to Facebook

Everyone knows of Facebook, and if you don't I would like to know what rock you have been living under?!

The past year I have learned some real downsides to Facebook which make me want to shut down my account and walk away.  Really I deal with enough crap in my life that I don't feel I need something like Facebook to make matters worse on me or my family.

So those who know have an idea of the positives, or at least people think they are.  Reconnecting with old friends, you know the ones you have not seen in 17 years, the ones that after reconnecting you remember why you lost touch!  Keeping in touch with out of town relatives or friends is a good thing about Facebook.

But there are the downsides....

The friends who's relationships/marriages have ended because of crap on Facebook.  You know the private email from an old flame telling you they have never forgotten about you. The positive to marrying my high school sweetheart is I don't have many of those!

The people who read too much into your status updates...

The friends who you find out you are no longer friends (and good friend, like big brother type) because they removed you as a friend from Facebook. Totally happened to me, and the kicker, it is my neighbour...

The family who see something you post and freak out because they think the something catastrophic has happened not realizing that if it really had, you would have called them from the ambulance.

Then you have those ones, the people who just have nothing good to say.

Today I had someone post something nasty on my Grace Announcements page.  I immediately read it over a few times before I got all freaked out, they claimed they ordered over a month ago and didn't receive anything.  I scanned the name and it didn't look familiar.  I looked through my order forms on my desk, nothing.  I did a search in my email, nothing.  I pulled up my online shopping cart software, nothing.  I went the last place I could try, PayPal to look there.  They did after all claim at how much they paid for shipping... and there was nothing there.  This person was not listed in any of the 5 places that their order would show up. I would not let up there, technology has let me down many times in the past, that is part of running an online business. I sent the person an email on Facebook and they come back and tell me that they had not ordered anything from me... are you freakin kidding me???? I spent 40 minutes going over everything to see what could have happened to their order.

I was horrified that there was a customer out there like this, that had been waiting over a month for their order.  They didn't call the office or send an email.  Customer service is our top priority,we will go above and beyond in a situation to make it right.  But how do you make a situation like this right?

This person turns around and blocks me (because I am going to go all Facebook crazy on them or something???) and removes all of their bad comments from my page.

Do you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and think that today is the day I am going to have "fun"on facebook?

Yep so there you have it, today was one of those days when I would be so happy to close my Facebook account and walk away...